History of the Girondists, Volume I / Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution

by Alphonse de Lamartine

V.

Opinion, already agitated by the death of Leopold, received another shock from the news of the tragical death of the king of Sweden, who was assassinated on the night of the 16th of March, 1792, at a masked ball. Death seemed to strike, one after another, all the enemies of France. The Jacobins saw its hand in all these catastrophes, and even boasted of them through their most audacious demagogues; but they proclaimed more crimes than they committed, and their wishes alone shared in these assassinations.

Gustavus, this hero of the counter-revolution, this chevalier of aristocracy, fell by the blows of his nobility. When he was ready to set forth on the expedition he projected against France, he had assembled his diet to ensure the tranquillity of the kingdom during his absence. His vigorous measures had put down the malcontents; yet it was foretold to him, like Cæsar, that the ides of March would be a critical period of his destiny. A thousand traces revealed a plot, and his intended assassination was rumoured over all Germany before the blow was struck. These rumours are the forerunners of projected crimes: some indication escapes the heart of the conspirator, and it is by this means that the event is predicted before it happens.

The king of Sweden, warned by his numerous friends, who entreated him to be upon his guard, replied, like Cæsar, that the stroke when once received was less painful than the perpetual dread of receiving it, and that if he listened to all these warnings, he could no longer drink a glass of water without trembling. He braved danger, and showed himself more than ever to the people. The conspirators had made several fruitless attempts during the Diet, but chance had preserved the king. Since his return to Stockholm, the king frequently went to pass the day alone at his château at Haga, a league from the capital. Three of the conspirators had approached the château, at five o'clock on a dark winter's evening, armed with carbines, and ready to fire on the king. The apartment he occupied was on the ground floor, and the lighted candles in the library enabled them to see their victim. Gustavus, on his return from hunting, undressed, and fell asleep in an arm chair, within a few feet of the assassins. Whether it was that they were alarmed by the sound of footsteps, or that the solemn contrast of the peaceful slumber of this prince with the death that threatened him, softened their hearts, they again abandoned their project, and only revealed this circumstance on their trial after the assassination, when the king acknowledged the truth and precision of their details. They were ready to renounce their intention, discouraged by a sort of divine intervention, and by the fatigue of having so long meditated this design in vain, when a fatal occasion tempted them too strongly, and made them resolve on the murder of the king.

VI.

A masked ball was given at the opera, which the king was to attend, and the conspirators resolved to take advantage of the mystery of the disguise and tumult of the fête to strike the blow, without allowing the hand to appear. A short time before the ball the king supped with a few of his most intimate courtiers. A letter was brought to him, which he opened, and reading it jestingly, then threw it on the table. The anonymous writer informed him that he was neither a friend to his person nor an approver of his policy, but that as a loyal enemy he desired to inform him of the death that menaced him. He counselled him not to go to the ball; or, if he persisted, he advised him to mistrust the crowd that might press around him, for that was the signal for the blow to be aimed at him. That the king might not doubt the warning thus given, he recalled to his memory his dress, gesture, his sleep in his apartment of Haga in the evening that he had believed himself quite alone. Such convincing proofs must have struck and intimidated the mind of the prince, but his intrepid soul made him brave, not only the warning, but death: he rose and went to the ball.

VII.

Scarcely had he reached the apartment, when he was surrounded, as he had been warned, by a group of masks, and separated, as if by preconcerted movement, from the body of officers who were in attendance. At this moment an invisible hand fired at his back a pistol loaded with slugs. The blow struck him in the left flank above the hip. Gustavus fell into the arms of Count d'Armsfeld, his favourite. The report of the fire arm, the smell of powder, the cries of "fire," which resounded through the apartment, the confusion which followed the king's fall, the real or feigned anxiety of persons who hurried forward to save him, favoured the escape of the assassins: the pistol had been dropped on the ground. Gustavus did not lose his presence of mind for a moment. He ordered the doors to be immediately closed, and desired all to unmask. Carried by his guards into an apartment in the opera-house, he was confided to his surgeons. He admitted some of the foreign ministers into his presence, and spoke to them with all the calmness of a strong mind. Even his pain did not inspire him with any feeling of vengeance. Generous even in death, he demanded anxiously if the assassin had been apprehended. He was told that he was unknown. "Oh God, grant," he said, "that he may not be discovered."

Whilst the king was receiving the first attentions, and being conveyed to the palace, the guards stationed at the doors of the ball-room compelled all to take off their masks, asked their names, and searched their persons: nothing suspicious was discovered. Four of the chief conspirators, men of the highest nobility in Stockholm, had succeeded in escaping from the apartment in the first confusion produced by the report of the pistol, and before the doors had been closed. Of nine confidants or accomplices in the crime, eight had already gone away without exciting any suspicion: only one was left in the apartment, who affected a slow step and calm demeanour as guarantees of his innocence.

He left the apartment last of all, raising his mask before the officer of police, and saying, as he looked steadfastly at him, "As for me, sir, I hope you do not suspect me." This man was the assassin.